Thursday, July 10, 2008

Recently developed "touch DNA" technology has cleared all members of JonBenet Ramsey's family of her slaying, authorities said Wednesday.

JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said no one in the Ramsey family is considered a suspect and formally apologized in a letter to John Ramsey for the cloud of suspicion his family has lived under for nearly 12 years.

This result is good news both for those who have been officially cleared and for the possibility that the as yet unidentified man who did murder a 6-year-old girl and who left DNA at the crime scene may eventually be identified.

What I find puzzling is that DNA found in 1998 under Ramsey's fingernails also matched an unidentified man. Did investigators not trust that result?

I hope that this new technology can help identify the DNA of other murderers and stranger rapists.

What's scary is the number of unprocessed rape kits, many of which contain DNA where the police have a name to go with the DNA sample. Those who rape and/or murder strangers can also commit violent crimes against those they know so even if an acquaintance rape case is considered difficult to prove, processing the evidence in those cases can help solve cases where there will be no debate about whether a crime has been convicted.

Honestly, I don't want to hear anybody demanding the death penalty for child rape unless I also hear them demanding funding for the processing of all rape kits.

About Abyss2hope

Abyss2hope is centered on date rape, but isn't limited to discussing crimes which can be described this way since the causes and attitudes related to date rape are interconnected with domestic violence and other types of sexual violence.

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